


Not Your Sidekick

by HogwartsToAlexandria



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Exhaustion, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, Nightmares, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Pining, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Pre-Relationship, Protective Michelle Jones, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26737369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HogwartsToAlexandria/pseuds/HogwartsToAlexandria
Summary: Peter's tried so hard to hide what was going on with him. Too hard. And MJ didn't buy it for a second any way.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35
Collections: Fic In A Box





	Not Your Sidekick

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sandyk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/gifts).



Entire worlds collapse in his dreams. Worlds where up is down and down is up, where blue is red and red is blue and his costume is blurred. Worlds where his shouting leads to Nowhere, Space, and his whispers fill the void where he should be seeing buildings. Buildings that are bearing down on him, relentless, stone and concrete and metal, bars and blocks of them, all cascading on top of him. 

He's battered. He's bloody. And he's wearing pajamas. Not a suit. He's scraped and he's grating his teeth. 

Peter wakes up. Every night for the entirety of the summer following his meeting with the Vulture and it's not the man he dreams about, it's the broken, exploded building that pressed him between death and bravery. It's the entire walls of rock he lifted with arms that strained through their enhancement to save himself.

The sweat on his dreamed cheeks is replaced by tears when he invariably wakes up, shaking and mute, his crying only remembered, not reenacted. 

Thank God, or he would have to tell May. He does not want to tell May. 

That's the running thought that mixes with more flashbacks of what it was like to feel his body battered and exhausted and yet pushing those last few yards, unyielding even then. The state of his mind as Peter keeps on with life like he's always done — wake up in the morning, trudge to the bathroom, not looking at his face in the mirror for ages wondering if MJ will ever see him as boyfriend material, make his way to the kitchen, gulf down cereal and orange juice while nodding along to May's gentle chatter, say bye, go to school. 

Go to school. 

Without having slept anything like a good amount. With those images still pounding at his psyche, still haunting his very body when he opens his locker to get his chem book and goes to class. 

He wishes he could be in Mr. Stark's lab. He wishes he could sleep normally. 

He wakes up to someone shaking his arm. 

"Parker!" 

It's MJ hissing in his ear. 

"Parker for fuck's sakes!" 

Peter's eyes are blurry when he opens them. They're never blurry. Or have never been before, whatever, spidey senses make them not blurry, they make them too sharp even as he wakes up. This is not normal. He's not being normal Peter. Normal Peter also does not fall asleep in chem class, even if they're boring and he knows all the items at hand and Mr Stark's explained much more advanced stuff to him multiple times and and and…

"Peter?" 

He's aware there's noise around him, and there's MJ's hand touching his forearm and Ned is calling his name with more panic than is warranted and… his eyes aren't blurry anymore because he's asleep again. Or out of it. He's unconscious. Was. A minute ago. He—

"You passed out Parker." MJ glares at him from across a room Peter only registers is the school's infirmary after a few seconds have passed and all the white he sees start making sense. 

The passing out does not. 

The way MJ crosses her arms at him and Ned is nowhere to be seen also does not.

"I know." She says. "I know you're Spider-Man." 

Peter splutters. He chokes.  _ Deny deny deny deny, deflect, deny, distract.  _

"No I'm not." Is what he pathetically croaks out in the end. 

MJ levels him with an unimpressed glare. Her eyebrow goes up a notch, and she scoffs. 

"Try harder." She adds, and softer, "Ned is keeping your aunt company in the hallway." 

Peter feels his eyes widening, but his heart is still beating too loudly and he can't focus. She knows. MJ knows. His secret—

"You don't have to deal with this alone you know." MJ says, "don't have to be all business and secrets and handling whatever nightmares you're having on your own." 

"What—" Peter exclaims as he sits up, but she interrupts him with another glare. 

"You were mumbling in your sleep." 

Her voice is graver than usual, and her face, her eyes, Peter thinks maybe, this is the first time he's being treated to the sight of MJ showing her concern for anything, for  _ him _ . 

It makes him blush. 

They watch each other for a long time after that. Simply keep their eyes on each other, and a rare occurence, Peter doesn't have a thousand things to say, doesn't have a million thoughts running through his mind and making him blink trying to catch them all. He just studies MJ's posture, her crossed arms and her crossed legs, her dirty sneakers with the laces half-undone and her hair coming out of the bun she'd tied it into during class, probably. She's so beautiful it kinda hurts to look at her. Peter bites his lip a number of times, he fiddles with the scratchy infirmary sheets. He whispers, a confession as much of a confirmation MJ doesn't need, "Ned's my guy in the chair." 

She giggles. A fine sound that Peter delights in, smiling. 

She nods, as if to herself, and then sends him yet another dark look, but it's playful this time. "I'm warning you Parker, I refuse to be a sidekick."


End file.
